Color Classic Troubles- I NEED HELP

[Color_Classic2009]

:O

Hi,

I purchased a color Classic off ebay about 1 year ago. Its been my baby. I have loved old macs since I was a kid, yeah I am a geekl, but when it comes to fixing them I'm a little rusty. Everything was working fine, until about 2 months ago the floppy disk started acting up. Everytime I put one in it said it had to be formatted. Then the formatting would fail. So I got a disk cleaning disk. It worked. Started reading the disks again, but NOW as of today- it will not start up. EVERYTIME I turn on the mac it wont boot, instead it just shows a flashing disk with a ? mark. WHAT CAN I DO TO FIX THIS? I NEED HELP, anyone know what to do?

 

[Apostrophe]

Sure, all you need is a system floppy disk.

The floppy disk question mark is simply a prompt for a new operating system. OSes do need reinstalling after a while.

One of my SE's does the same thing, except that it actually rejects my system disk. Let's hope that this isn't the case with your Color Classic!

Hope that helps,

-Apostrophe

 

[Color_Classic2009]

Do u think my hard drive is messed up or just system software? I mean the hd makes some strange noise sometimes.

 

[Apostrophe]

It's the software that's problematic. I know this for two reasons:

1) The floppy disk question mark is very common; operating systems build up tiny bits of data from normal use after a while, and it builds up so much that slower performance and the floppy disk question marks occur. I've seen this in a couple of my Macs that a simple reinstallation fixed right up.

2) While it remains a possibility that the hard drive is to blame, you could remove your Color Classic's hard drive and you could still run the computer from the system floppy disk! Hard drives, while certainly facilitating and speeding up data and OS storage, are not 'absolutely necessary' to run a Mac in the most basic form. Of course, if you want to install programs, you'll need a working HDD to store the OS so that your floppy drive's free, but you could still run your Mac solely off of a system floppy. In fact, for the earlier compact Macs, you had to run it off of a floppy, as they had no internal hard drives!

So try and get ahold of a system floppy disk and see if your HDD will accept an installation. The chances are high that an OS reinstallation will fix it right up.

Keep us posted,

-Apostrophe

 

[Scott Baret]

Keep the hard drive in the back of your mind. My CC has a hard drive that appears to be failing based on the noises it is making.

Apple seemed to use Quantum ProDrive EPS series in the Color Classics. These drives were decent performers but seem to conk out after 15 years. I can tell by the access noise that I have an EPS in mine and I wouldn't be surprised if you have one of these drives in yours if there is a failure.

Do what Apostrophe suggested first to rule out a software problem. As he said, it's likely the cause, especially if the drive hasn't had a clean install in some time. (I like to perform clean installs every two years if the machine is used daily so I can reformat the drive and start with a fresh, unabused OS install at the same time; for computers used irregularly I usually stretch it to three and a half years).

 

[metzen01]

Color Classic2009 I'm curious as to what results you found on your Color Classic as mine has the same symptoms and I did determine it was the hard drive. [] ]'> Rather then try and find a replacement I'm in the process of getting an Imac motherboard into mine and don't worry everyone all the other parts are still useable. [] ]'>

 

[System7]

Try a 7.5 Boot floppy.

 

[netfreak]

Try a 7.5 Boot floppy.

Apple's FTP should still have the disk tools boot images.

 

[metzen01]

Thanks Netfreak and System7 but I had beaten you to the suggestion. No luck. Boots up fine but no HD and I hear it spin up but then slows down and stops. Also tried the command option P R to zap the pram but no success.

Again thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Scott Baret]

Thanks Netfreak and System7 but I had beaten you to the suggestion. No luck. Boots up fine but no HD and I hear it spin up but then slows down and stops. Also tried the command option P R to zap the pram but no success.
Again thanks for the suggestions.

This sounds like a classic Quantum ELS drive problem. Swap it with an LPS or another reliable SCSI hard drive and you should be fine.

 

[metzen01]

Thanks for the swap idea but I will be following the instructions that Brad Struges posted online to convert to an iMaCC.

http://colourclassicfaq.com/mobo/imacc.html

 

[LCGuy]

Nooo! Other than the HDD it all works, doesn't it? Working CCs are getting harder and harder to find these days....if you do want to make an iMaCC, maybe consider doing a swap with someone who has a dead CC? Working CCs are hard enough to find these days without people molesting them to make things like that.

 

[macgeek417]

Thanks for the swap idea but I will be following the instructions that Brad Struges posted online to convert to an iMaCC.http://colourclassicfaq.com/mobo/imacc.html

Eeek! Noooooo! Don't!

 

[Bunsen]

If you want a low-impact upgrade, consider the LC 575 motherboard swap, which should also be detailed at the CC FAQ site.